ISTANBUL: Turkey is planning to build a bridge across the famed Dardanelles strait to help ease traffic congestion in Istanbul, a minister said, revealing the latest in a string of mega projects under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The straits, which separate Europe and Asia, were last bridged by Xerxes the Great, the Persian “king of kings” in 480 BC on his way to defeat the Greeks at Thermopylae.
“We are planning to construct a new bridge across the Dardanelles strait,” Transport Minister Lutfi Elvan said in an interview with Turkish television.
The Dardanelles lead into the Sea of Marmara which then goes into the Bosphorus in Istanbul itself. The waterway is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and is 1.2 km wide at its narrowest point.
So far the Dardanelles strait can only be crossed by ferry.
“We will turn the entire Marmara region into a ring road, so this ring system will ease the Istanbul traffic to a great extent,” Elvan added.
The Dardanelles, which played a key role in the great sea battles of ancient history, were also the site of one of the most famous battles of World War I when Ottoman troops resisted an invading Allied force.
It was also where the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal, the man who would later become known as Ataturk, made his name as a heroic military leader.
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government is under fire for its ambitious construction projects for the mega city of 16 million, which critics have condemned as wildly excessive and damaging to the environment.
The projects include a massive new Istanbul airport, a third road bridge across the Bosphorus, and a canal parallel to the waterway to ease the permanent bottleneck of tankers and freighters waiting to pass through it.
Erdogan has said the projects are needed to create a fast-developing and prosperous “new Turkey” that will be one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023.
The building industry has boomed in recent years but while Erdogan was prime minister, his government was shaken by a now-stalled corruption probe into allegations of high-level bribery linked to some construction projects.
Elvan vowed that the government would move ahead with mega projects, saying the government was planning a 17 billion Turkish lira ($7.6 billion/6 billion euros) investment in Istanbul.
Among the new projects is a direct metro line from Kadikoy to the Sabiha Gokcen airport on the Asian side of Istanbul, he added.
Last year amid great fanfare the government opened the first ever undersea metro link beneath the Bosphorus connecting the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.
This year it opened the first high-speed train link between Istanbul and Ankara.
Turkey to bridge the Dardanelles in new mega project
Turkey to bridge the Dardanelles in new mega project
AI will never replace human creativity, says SRMG CEO
- Speaking to Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, Jomana R. Alrashid expressed pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI
RIYADH: Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of Saudi Research and Media Group, highlighted how AI cannot replace human creativity during a session at The Family Office’s “Investing Is a Sea” summit at Shura Island on Friday.
“You can never replace human creativity. Journalism at the end of the day, and content creation, is all about storytelling, and that’s a creative role that AI does not have the power to do just yet,” Alrashid told the investment summit.
“We will never eliminate that human role which comes in to actually tell that story, do the actual investigative reporting around it, make sure to be able to also tell you what’s news or what’s factual from what’s wrong ... what’s a misinformation from bias, and that’s the bigger role that the editorial player does in the newsroom.”
Speaking on the topic of AI, moderated by Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, the CEO expressed her pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI in a way that was “transformative.”
“We are now translating all of our content leveraging AI. We are also now being able to create documentaries leveraging AI. We now have AI-facilitated fact-checking, AI facilities clipping, transcribing. This is what we believe is the future.”
Alrashid was asked what the journalist of the future would look like. “He’s a journalist and an engineer. He’s someone who needs to understand data. And I think this is another topic that is extremely important, understanding the data that you’re working with,” she said.
“This is something that AI has facilitated as well. I must say that over the past 20 years in the region, especially when it comes to media companies, we did not understand the importance of data.”
The CEO highlighted that previously, media would rely on polling, surveys or viewership numbers, but now more detailed information about what viewers wanted was available.
During the fireside session, Alrashid was asked how the international community viewed the Middle Eastern media. Alrashid said that over the past decades it had played a critical role in informing wider audiences about issues that were extremely complex — politically, culturally and economically — and continued to play that role.
“Right now it has a bigger role to play, given the role again of social media, citizen journalists, content creators. But I also do believe that it has been facilitated by the power that AI has. Now immediately, you can ensure that that kind of content that is being created by credible, tier-A journalists, world-class journalists, can travel beyond its borders, can travel instantly to target different geographies, different people, different countries, in different languages, in different formats.”
She said that there was a big opportunity for Arab media not to be limited to simply Arab consumption, but to finally transcend borders and be available in different languages and to cater to their audiences.
The CEO expressed optimism about the future, emphasizing the importance of having a clear vision, a strong strategy, and full team alignment.
Traditional advertising models, once centered on television and print, were rapidly changing, with social media platforms now dominating advertising revenue.
“It’s drastically changing. Ultimately in the past, we used to compete with one another over viewership. But now we’re also competing with the likes of social media platforms; 80 percent of the advertising revenue in the Middle East goes to the social media platforms, but that means that there’s 80 percent interest opportunities.”
She said that the challenge was to create the right content on these platforms that engaged the target audiences and enabled commercial partnerships. “I don’t think this is a secret, but brands do not like to advertise with news channels. Ultimately, it’s always related with either conflict or war, which is a deterrent to advertisers.
“And that’s why we’ve entered new verticals such as sports. And that’s why we also double down on our lifestyle vertical. Ultimately, we have the largest market share when it comes to lifestyle ... And we’ve launched new platforms such as Billboard Arabia that gives us an entry into music.”
Alrashid said this was why the group was in a strong position to counter the decline in advertising revenues across different platforms, and by introducing new products.
“Another very important IP that we’ve created is events attached to the brands that have been operating in the region for 30-plus years. Any IP or any title right now that doesn’t have an event attached to it is missing out on a very big commercial opportunity that allows us to sit in a room, exchange ideas, talk to one another, get to know one another behind the screen.”
The CEO said that disruption was now constant and often self-driving, adding that the future of the industry was often in storytelling and the ability to innovate by creating persuasive content that connected directly with the audience.
“But the next disruption is going to continue to come from AI. And how quickly this tool and this very powerful technology evolves. And whether we are in a position to cope with it, adapt to it, and absorb it fully or not.”
